The next Meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change (DCICC) will be held on 16 September from 16.30 to 18.30 hours, in Vilnius, Lithuania during the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

ITU launched the Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change (DCICC) in 2007 as an open body committed to moderating the environmental impact of the Internet, to seeking new ways to embrace the power of the Internet for reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and to enabling transformation in line with the objectives set and to be set under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

ITU is organizing its Fifth Symposium on ICTs, The Environment and Climate Change, in cooperation with and under the auspices of Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs (MSEA), Egypt.

The Symposium will be held 2-3 November 2010 at the Smart Village Convention Center in Cairo, Egypt. It will bring together leading specialists in the field, from top policy-makers to engineers, designers, planners, government officials, regulators, standards experts and others.

Participants will focus on the issue of ICTs, the environment and climate change in Africa and the needs of developing countries.

The main purpose is to raise awareness of the importance and opportunities for using ICTs to monitor climate change, to mitigate and adapt to its effects and, in this light, to identify future requirements for ITUís related work.

Topics to be discussed will include adaptation to climate change, e-waste, cost-effective ICT technologies, methodology of environmental impact assessment of ICT and financing of climate change solutions.

An output of the Symposium is expected to be the ďCairo Road MapĒ, a set of recommendations for action in relation to ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change.

This event is particularly timely, as it will take place less than a month before the opening of the 16th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP 16), which will take place in November 2010 in Cancun, Mexico and will aim at producing a new global agreement on climate change.

A new ITU-T Technology Watch Report provides an overview of technology-caused driver distraction and surveys standards, guidelines and initiatives aiming at making the use of in-vehicle information and communication systems less distracting.

Texting, making calls, and other interaction with in-vehicle information and communication systems while driving is a serious source of driver distraction and increases the risk of traffic accidents. Technology-caused driver distraction is a global problem and has its stake in the more than 1.2 million people dying in road crashes each year. These numbers are more than reason enough for the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration to launch a Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011-2020) to halt or reverse the increasing trend in road traffic deaths and injuries around the world.

In April 2010, ITU Council adopted a Resolution on ďITUís role in ICTs and improving Road Safety,Ē instructing the Director of ITUís Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) to bring this matter to the attention of the relevant groups in ITU-T, such as Study Group 12 and the Focus Group on Car Communication. The annual Fully Networked Car workshop, jointly organized by ISO, IEC and ITU at the Geneva International Motor Show, will also contribute to raising awareness on this important issue.

Dialing a hand-held device increases a driverís chance of being involved in a vehicle crash by three times and talking while driving increases the crash risk by 1.3 times. When composing or reading text messages (SMS) drivers spend up to 400 per cent more time with their eyes off the road than they do when not texting. Mobile broadband enables drivers and passengers to benefit from innovative applications and location-based services, but used at the wheel, smartphones contribute to inattention.

By implementing standardized human-machine interfaces in their devices and applications, manufacturers can make their use less distracting. Advanced speech recognition and text-to-speech features, and ensured Quality of Service of in-vehicle hands-free systems may minimize driver distraction. Future safety technologies may temporarily or permanently disable certain features of information and communication technologies used by the driver, based on constantly updated status information provided by sensors inside and outside the vehicle.

These and other approaches to reduce technology-based driver distraction and to increase road safety are discussed in a number of standardization bodies, including ITU-T and ISO. The Technology Watch Report highlights their work and points out options for ITUís role in ICT and road safety.

A copy of the guidance note for the United Nations country teams to include the rights of persons with disabilities in their programming at country level has been recently published by the United Nations Development Group /Inter-Agency Support Group for the Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The guidance note is a crucial tool for the UN Country teams and can play a significant role in supporting States to implement the UN Convention. This will be carried out through the design and implementation of the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) and through the work of individual agencies in their areas of mandate, ITU being one of the agencies actively working in this area.

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